Zhao Leji: the younger gun playing second fiddle to Xi Jinping
In the past five years, the party’s personnel chief has cemented his position through loyalty to the president
![At 60, Zhao Leji is the youngest member of the Politburo Standing Committee. Illustration: Henry Wong](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1020x680/public/images/methode/2017/10/26/f3d5525e-b7da-11e7-affb-32c8d8b6484e_1280x720_112719.jpg?itok=WhUkq2eE)
Zhao Leji is one of the new members of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. Here we present a snapshot of his career:
As the Communist Party’s personnel chief, Zhao Leji’s big job has been to fill the vacancies left by a legion of cadres caught up in the president’s anti-corruption campaign.
Now he is filling a vacancy himself by taking up a seat at the top table of power in China, the Politburo Standing Committee.
At 60, Zhao is the youngest of the group of seven, giving him a good chance of staying in play when leadership line-up changes again in five years.
He is also one of the lower profile figures in the crackdown on graft, building a career in less-developed parts of the country and making a strength out of loyalty to President Xi Jinping.
Since 2012, Zhao has been the head of the party’s Organisation Department, a shadowy but powerful body that oversees top appointments in all state-run institutions, from ministries and state-owned companies to the media and public universities.
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